Videos: Super Robot Wars BX Latest Promo
With the release of Super Robot Wars BX looming, we've been graced with a new promo. It shows a lot of new animation and the game is looking great really. Bandai Namco...

Toys: DX Chogokin VF-19 Advance
One of the more interesting releases from Bandai as of late has been their DX Chogokin VF-19 Advance as seen very briefly in the second Macross Frontier movie. As there...

First off, apologies for the lack of updates. Things have been pretty bizarre as of late and have only just started to somewhat calm down. In addition, there aren’t that many mecha games to talk about at the moment – though more as to why a bit later. However, we did manage to make it to this year’s Tokyo Game Show and briefly hang out with the nice people at HobbyLink.tv.

Anyway, the console side of things is in a bit of a transition. Most publishers thought, incorrectly, that consoles were dead and as such didn’t bother to develop many games for the newer consoles. Cue the release of them last year and their crazy high sales, publishers freaked and started developing new games for them. The problem is that most big games take at least 2 years to get off the ground. We are halfway through that, so this year’s show was a little barren. It’s also why there aren’t many mecha games on the horizon, yet! This means stuff like Armored Core is very likely being worked on but isn’t quite in a state to be shown to the public at large.

We took lots of pictures though and we also helped out the HobbyLink.tv people, with the video of that shown below (I am the chunky British guy, obviously). The pictures and some gameplay impressions are after the link.

At the recent pre-TGS Sony Conference, another short teaser trailer of the unnamed Gundam game for the PS4 was shown. Aside from the titular RX-78-02, more series-lead Gundams appeared such as Unicorn, God, Turn A, 00 Gundam, Wing, Full Armor ZZ, and many more. Here’s to hoping we’ll see more about this game during TGS 2014, but at the very least we now have a tentative 2015 release date. Until more info drops, feast your eyes on the teaser from the show.

Over the last two weeks, a large number of new Gundam Side Stories DLC has been released by Bandai Namco. Last week saw the release of the RGM-79N GM Custom and RGC-83 GM Cannon II . Both first appearing in the Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memories OVA, they are available for 300 yen each. Along with these two mobile suits, VR Mission 107 was released free of charge. This week saw the release of the EMS-10 Zudah . Initially appearing in the MS Igloo CGI OVA, the Zudah is a Zeon mobile suit devised as part of an extensive Zeon propaganda campaign. The Zudah was described as the new “secret weapons” that would demolish the Federation’s famed Gundam and lead Zeon to victory. The Zudah is now available on the Japanese PlayStation Store for 400 yen. Along with this new mobile suit, this week’s update includes VR Mission 108 as a free download.

In addition to the weekly DLC, Bandai Namco has partnered with Kadokawa Comics to release a Full-Armor Variant of the Slave Wraith. First appearing in the Missing Link campaign, the RX-79[G] SW Slave Wraith is a custom ground mobile suit. The Full Armor variation of this unit has increased defensive capabilities, providing extra protection against the light weapons used by Zeon’s mobile suits through shock absorption. Released on August 26th in Japan for 580 yen, the first volume of the Mobile Suit Gundam Side Stories manga includes a DLC code for this new unit.

For those that are interested, we’ve recently reviewed the DX Chogokin YF-30 Chronos from the PS3 game Macross 30 over at HobbyLink.tv (in addition to a small unboxing piece too). Despite being an obviously great toy, we still can’t get over the basic fact it exists at all. Considering that this is a one off design without any variants and it’s from a game to boot, the fact we have such an brilliant toy of the design is pretty amazing really. If you haven’t played the game yet, then it was recently re-released under the discount “The Best” label.

Over the weekend, Makuhari Messe in Tokyo (well, technically Chiba) hosted yet another event, that of Chara Hobby 2014. Prior to that Bandai announced a new line of toys called Metal Robot Damashii. We held off on mentioning the latter because we guessed (correctly) that the new toy line would be shown at Chara Hobby. Well, it turns out the first figure in the new toy line will be the mighty RX-93-v2 Hi-Nu Gundam (pictured above). You may be thinking, didn’t they already release a Hi-Nu Gundam recently? The answer would be “yes” (we reviewed it too) but this has all manner of diecast in the joints and other detailing. Subsequently, it looks utterly glorious. No word on price point or release date as yet but we’ll let you know as soon as we do. In the meantime check out the video of the new metal infused Hi-Nu Gundam below.

As for the rest of Chara Hobby, there was a lot of cool stuff on show. From the eye wateringly expensive Soul of Chogokin Gaogaigar which is out in December, to the gorgeous Megahouse Orguss. Anyway, check out the coverage here, here, here, here and here.

If you’re looking for more Gundam Breaker action, fear not! Bandai Namco have announced Gundam Breaker 2 for the Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita for Winter 2014. Not much is known about the title so far, such as possibly carrying over your units from the first game or what new units will be added, but we’ll let you know as soon as more information comes out. Until then, check out the teaser video below!

Following the announcement of an X2 toy, soon to be released in September, we now also have news of a new toy release. That of the plucky XM-X3 (F97) Crossbone Gundam X3. Unlike the X2, the X3 will be a webshop exclusive sadly. Priced at 5,616 yen and released in February next year, the pre-orders start today. There’s a definite push for more Crossbone Gundam toys though. As we had the Full Cloth, the X1 option parts set and even Harrison’s F-91 released or announced. What’s weird about all this, is that we have already had several Robot Damashii toys released of the various Crossbone Gundam mobile suits (bar the Full Cloth) and those had the ABC mantles too. Anyway, updated releases or not we’re just happy to see more of those classic mobile suits get the Robot Damashii treatment. If only they’d do the decent thing and make an anime already.

One of the main factors in Artdink’s renaissance as a studio is how it managed to land the Gundam and Macross licenses. Turning them into very capable PSP games and a few decent PS3 games to boot. The former of these licenses started out as the Gundam Battle series and this is where we come to The 3D Battle.

Much like the previous Gundam Battle games The 3D Battle re-uses content but unlike the execrable Assault Survive, it remembers that this is foremost a handheld game. As such it’s much more in line with the older games in the series and subsequently pretty damn good.